When New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters sacked Phil Goff as New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom he declared “It’s seriously regrettable and one of the most difficult things one has had to do in his whole career.”
Goff is a Labour Party professional career politician, one of the breed who trained to be a politician in his youth and has never been anything other than a politician.
He was one of the cabal of Rogernomes in the Fourth Labour government, a one time Labour leader, and Winston Peters’ predecessor as New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Goff signed the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement at a time when Peters was arguing that New Zealand was “being colonised without having any say in the numbers of people coming in and where they are from”, with specific reference to the inflow of immigrants from China.
Goff and Peters come from opposite sides of the political divide (which to be fair is a very small and shallow divide in New Zealand), they were rivals in the foreign affairs and trade space, and they had different views on the ethnic and cultural basis of New Zealand society.
It is also quite possible that Peters would like to assume the High Commission role himself, if or when he retires from active political life in New Zealand.
So was Peters being disingenuous when he claimed that sacking Goff was the hardest thing that he ever had to do in politics? Were these crocodile tears? At the very least political hyberbole?
No, I take Peters comments at face value and so should we all, because they point to a problem that is gripping the New Zealand political establishment and which may tear it apart, just as Peters was personally torn apart by the necessity to sack Phil Goff. Peters’ curious third person wording reveals the genuineness of his regret, and also the fact that it goes beyond the personal.
Winston Peters is expressing the regrets of the coalition government as a whole.
We may think of Peters as being inordinately friendly towards the United States, and in particular tolerantly obliging towards the present US President, Donald Trump.
He is both of those things.
But that is not where Peters has come from.
He was named after the British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
In Maoridom such given names have significance and they can have a marked influence upon the course of one’s life.
At the very least, Peters whanau would have expected to him to share their admiration of Churchill, and even to emulate that last great leader of the British empire.
It is fair to say that Peters will have exceeded his parents’ expectations.
He has been consistently conservative, a British race nationalist, a gifted orator, and, like Churchill, a determined survivor through the many ups and downs of his political career.
Phil Goff may well have understood that in quoting from Winston Churchill while making a criticism of Donald Trump he would evoke conflicting feelings in his boss, Winston Peters.
Whether through chance or cunning, Goff found a way to expose the political tensions that were afflicting the New Zealand political establishment as a whole, and Winston Peters in particular.
That is, the tension between Europe and the United States which has slumbered unremarked through eighty years of the “special relationship” between the US and UK, the Marshall Plan, the establishment of NATO and the cold war with the Soviet Union.
We know that Donald Trump has split that alliance on the issue of the Ukraine war and trade tariffs, but the writing was on the wall during the previous Biden administration.
The sabotage of the Nordstream 2 pipeline and the US demand that Europe use American liquid natural gas in place of the much cheaper Russian gas dealt a severe blow to the German economy and to all of Europe.
Nordstream was a clear sign that the US would put its interests before that of Europe, and Europe acquiesced. Trump and Vance now intend to go a step further.
They are prepared to humiliate Europe, starting with Ukraine, but moving on to all the European states which wish to continue standing with Ukraine, and pride themselves on having sovereign rights of their own.
After all, states such as Britain, France and Germany once possessed great empires, and like the Russian Federation they still glory in the left-over trappings of a grand imperial past.
At the very least they believe that they have the right to national dignity.
The difference is that Russia has reclaimed its national dignity by successfully waging war against its renegade province of Ukraine.
Britain, France and Germany have done nothing but follow dutifully in the footsteps of the US.
This is the situation that is tearing at the heartstrings of Churchill’s namesake, Winston Peters.
Goff came down on the side of Europe and Britain.
The Labour Party in general probably shares Goff’s sentimental attachment to Britain and Europe (as does Peters), but the New Zealand political establishment as a whole sees that if the western strategic alliance collapses and New Zealand has to choose between Europe and the US, then the US is the only viable option.
“NATO in the Pacific” will be a dead duck.
AUKUS will have to become ANZUS if it is to survive at all.
Peters, Luxon and Seymour are in no doubt.
They have to go with Trump.
Therefore Goff had to return from London.
The consequence of going with Trump is not just that New Zealand abandons Ukraine (so far it has chosen to have no part in the “coalition of the willing).
It also means that New Zealand goes up against China.
Again Peters, Luxon and Seymour will take that step, albeit with some reluctance.
They cannot conceive of any alternative to having a colonial relationship to some great power, and to that end the United States is the only game left in town.
However this view is not held unanimously within the political establishment.
There are some, such as previous Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark and previous National Party leader Don Brash, who warn against antagonizing China.
But Clark and Brash do not actually have a strategy beyond urging us not to rock the boat in the face of a massive wave bearing down from the north.
They are not suggesting that New Zealand tie its colours to the mast of a Chinese battle cruiser.
They are not suggesting a neo-colonial relationship to the Peoples Republic of China.
That would not work.
For starters, China will not come to New Zealand’s aid if it was to be attacked by some other power.
It would support New Zealand diplomatically and perhaps economically, as it supports states such as Cuba and Venezuela but it would never intervene to support New Zealand militarily.
This is because China has always had a very strong sense of its place in the world, which from mainland China itself extends to Tibet, Taiwan and other places, such as the South China Sea, which have historically been subject to the Middle Kingdom.
Its recent intrusions into the South Pacific have been based on the same diplomatic premises as its relations with, say, Cuba, Venezuela or Iran.
It is asserting its interests and its sympathies through diplomatic and economic moves.
It will never commit itself to military support of those countries or regimes as the US, Britain and other European nations have intervened militarily to protect friendly regimes far and wide.
The unavoidable conclusion is that the US might lend military support to New Zealand in the event that New Zealand came under attack.
Only “might” because the US did not support New Zealand in any way (not even diplomatically) when it came under attack from France in 1985, and it has not followed through on its promise to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.
China on the other hand definitely will not support New Zealand militarily if it was to be faced with the threat of invasion or military force of any kind.
So a truly colonial relationship between New Zealand and China is out of the question.
The one possibility that has not been canvassed by any party in the colonialist political establishment in response to the current crisis is an end to colonialism.
We have those who wish to stay with Britain.
We have those who recognise that alliance with the US is the only viable way forward for New Zealand as a colonial entity.
And we have those who argue that this must not be done at the expense of antagonizing China.
But, and this should come as no surprise, we have no one within the regime to acknowledge that New Zealand colonialism is about to hit a brick wall which will cause massive economic damage and in the worst case a hugely destructive war.
There is a side issue here concerning New Zealand’s military expenditure – the so-called “defence spending”.
The debate over defence spending is putting the cart before the horse.
It ridiculous to try to decide how much should be spent on defence before deciding exactly what it is that you are defending.
Is it European values?
Is it US hegemony in the Pacific?
Is it New Zealand as a geographic entity?
Both the pro-British and pro-US camps want to increase the military budget, not to defend New Zealand as such but to “play a part” in the “defence of the free world”.
That being the case, the sky is the limit as far as spending goes.
Two percent of GDP would not be “enough to do the job”.
Neither would five percent or even one hundred percent.
Rather, it becomes a question of what is needed to satisfy New Zealand’s partners, whether that be Australia, the US or NATO.
One problem for New Zealand is that with its creaking infrastructure, struggling economy, social inequity and accompanying tensions it is not able to afford such arbitrary and effectively limitless expenditure on the military. Another less obvious problem is that any such expenditure can do nothing to defend New Zealand from attack or invasion.
It will not be designed for that purpose and so will not be able to serve such a purpose.
It will be designed to allow New Zealand to “play a part” in a conflict between great powers in the South China Sea, the Korean peninsula or the Strait of Taiwan, or, at a stretch, in Europe or the Middle East.
Putting the horse before the cart means divesting ourselves of colonialism and the colonialist mentality.
After New Zealand has ceased to be as a colonialist entity, after Aotearoa has asserted itself as a a sovereign nation with its own interests, then the question of defence spending will arise anew.
Only then will we know for sure what threats may be present, because geo-political threats are not natural phenomena which arise regardless of our own actions.
In fact they may be attributed entirely to our own acts or omissions.
Cuba is threatened by the United States because its internal policies, its ideology, and its external relations are anathema to the US government.
Ukraine is threatened by Russia and Taiwan is threatened by mainland China for much the same reasons.
Small nations or break-away states have choices which they can make rashly as in the case of Ukraine, boldly as in the case of Cuba, or more prudently as in the case of Taiwan.
When we have taken the final steps towards independence and sovereignty, then we may be able to see what if any threats present themselves to us.
To the extent that we are unable to mitigate the threat, we will have to think about how we may effectively defend ourselves against it.
Only then will the kind of military capability required become clearly evident, and the only thing one can say with certainty is that it will look very different to the current disposition of the New Zealand armed forces.
Meanwhile, the colonialist regime will plough on blindly behind Donald Trump. The voices of Phil Goff, Helen Clark and Don Brash are sounding warnings which will go unheeded.
Winston Peters will understand the consequences, and although troubled, will “do what he has to do”.
Christopher Luxon probably has no idea what he is getting himself into.
In going with Donald Trump’s new order for the western world New Zealand colonialism is failing its most significant test in decades.
But what other option does it have?
What other option does it have? Swiss neutrality.
It’s been argued that The Soviets could have pushed Nazi Germany out of Russia proper without a U.S. lend/lease deal. But they aren’t pushing to Berlin.
Without America, D-Day never happens and Japan firmly rules Asia. Britain and Russia just won’t be able to drive both into defeat by themselves. But the horrible Axis economy will solve that.
Without lend/lease Ukraine/Europe collapses. But Putin’s Russia doesn’t win per se. More or less stalemate pushes induced casualty rates pushes everyone into collapse.
We will probably see more civil war in the next 50 years and defacto decolonisation of Britain and United States because they’re bankrupt.
New Zealand is neither equipped or desire such Swiss style capital inflows and likely collapses in on itself thanks to how well the economy has been fucked.
The CCP get to end the game on there own terms while NZ are busy unfucking itself to busy to see that NZ is going to get fucked all over again.
The idea that NZ has to wait for the board to clear so we can take the cheap defence spending approach is an abuse of its courage.
There are no cheap options just more dead.
Neutrality is not an option while New Zealand retains its colonial status, but becomes the only possible position for an independent nation of Aotearoa.
Who are we going to appeal to to build up this Neutrality State. Pat Odea reckons that this generation has what it takes to fire all our generals and take over and it’s like no. They are way to busy with Matatini.
I don’t believe that it is an advantage to look into the world from 80 years ago to figure out where we want to go as a nation id much rather look at what this generation is doing and try and give them the tools they need to succeed because let’s face it you lot are just front seat driving repeating worn out theories from 80 years ago from a world that wasn’t working well in the first place.
Peters certainly follows Churchill in supporting mass genocide, like Churchill engineering the death of millions of Bengalis.
That is true, and it makes the point that colonialism is not an innocuous folly. It brings real suffering to the world.
So why did a Ngati Wai boy like Winston Peters end up as not just an apologist but a fervent advocate for colonialism? I would say that his case is similar to that of Apirana Ngata. He came to believe an accommodation with colonialism was the only way forward for him personally, and for his people. He joined the National Party and won the Hunua seat by a whisker in 1978. Later, National gave him the Maori Affairs portfolio, which is to say that while his talent was clearly evident he was not going to be given proper recognition. Apart from Muldoon, there was no one in the National caucus who was a match for Winston Peters. If National had been able to rise above its racial prejudices, Peters would have led the Party into the 1987 election. Instead he was driven out into the cold and formed the New Zealand First Party which became his vehicle for a return to politics extending into another three decades. Although he has never expressed bitterness over his failure to breach the National Party’s glass ceiling, the experience must have had an impact. Even while he continues to denigrate “Maori nationalism”, Winston Peters knows in his heart that his life-long collaboration with colonialism has been a waste and a failure. New Zealand First has degenerated into a clique of corrupt careerists, and Peters himself has lost his moral compass.
As alluded to in your comment, Winston Churchill ordered the RAF to use poison gas to suppress Arab uprisings in Iraq, and now Winston Peters is tacitly supporting the Gaza genocide. All I can say is that Winston Peters entire career demonstrates that collaboration with colonialism comes at a high price to the human soul.
Why do we need to be tied to either of the so called super powers .NZ continues to believe we are some super power in the pacific ,which is far from the reality .Even if we mobilized our entire 5 million we would be gone in a week if we were invaded .Who would bother to invade us is the big question ?.As we have seen in the last few weeks the USA could close us down in a day and China could bring us to our knees over night by stopping all trade .
We might be best to keep our heads down and get with looking after NZ and stop sending our young people off to fight other countries wars for no gain for NZ .
No society is truly free to do whatever they want. Absent The New Zealand Defence Force there is no other branch of the government that can give it legitimacy.
It’s like okay to keep my head down I need a sustainable fishing stock quota system. Well that quota system doesn’t actually stop people from breaking the rules. You need men to stop people from breaking the rules.
Our interests don’t have to align with superpowers all of the time to know that murder is wrong and the seven deadly sins will dismantle the human rights framework. Underwriting human rights isn’t just a question of military hardware it is also a state of mind. In this example I argue that things like pornography does more damage than nuclear weapons. Porn takes young men out of the game entirely not just defeating your economy but your sole as well.
I completely agree, Gordon, that we should “get with looking after NZ and stop sending our young people off to fight other countries wars for no gain for NZ”. However I don’t believe that the “USA could close us down in a day and China could bring us to our knees over night” if by “us” you mean the independent nation of Aotearoa. Do not underestimate the power and determination of five million people once freed from the shackles of colonialism.
I understand what you are saying but becoming Aotearoa will not happen in my life time I fear as what we saw at the last election racisism is far too embeded in the kiwi mind .My grand kids might gain this status in about 50 years perhaps .Can really see the current government cutting the umbilical cords which bind us to the UK and USA .
We still have to earn the right to be called an organised civilisation. Whatever we do we have to understand that we can not be our own will, force this generation into fighter jets and battle ships. It’s got to be there own choice to look at our human rights framework that we are developing and constantly redeveloping and be like yeah I’ll die in a ditch for that.
Describing what has always been so, it’s a tragedy such a rare essay won’t be read by more. The realpolitik of our situation is not only that, to survive, we must eat crow, but that we must endure endless parades of politicians telling us it’s the finest poultry. Just as we viewed the man beseeching the Don in “The Godfather” as a sniveling nobody amid the opulence of the Mafiosi’s bearing and surroundings, there to symbolise righteousness, decency and order – despite all the blood that bought it, so are nations made to grovel in a blood stained world ruled over by this Don.
Geoff – Very Cool post…We, NZ, need to stop giving career politicians Diplomatic posts…they have not earned it, nor do they have the necessary skills.
Who is it that keeps forcing the issue? demanding we choose?
Clue: the same lot who declared that “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists”. The same lot who insisted on NATO expanding eastward.
However, their century on top of the heap is over.
A curse on all their houses.
And when Trump invades Greenland, which is looking increasing likely?
(Mussolini’s Ethiopia to Putin’s Ukraine/Sudetenland?)
Will we choose Canada/Europe then?
Will we, at least switch off 5 eyes?
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